The main body of research on work councils has been conducted on a collective institutional level, neglecting work council members at an individual level. In times of changing industrial relations, the importance of work councils in management decision making has risen steadily and thus further research of its members is required. This paper sheds light onto work councillors as individuals by investigating personality and attitudinal characteristics using data from a large representative German dataset. The findings are gender-specific and suggest that female work councillors are more extraverted and exhibit a stronger internal Locus of Control, while male work councillors are more conscientious as compared to their non-councillor counterparts. Risk attitudes and reciprocity do not show as valid predictors of work council membership. Implications of the results are discussed. Key words: work councils, Five Factor Model, risk aversion, locus of control, reciprocity (ProQuest: ... denotes formula omitted.) 1. Introduction The research on the topic of industrial relations has grown significantly over the last decades. Notably, a variety of research questions - mainly concerning the determinants and economic outcomes of the existence of work councils - has been posed regarding the institution of the work council.1 The main body of research has focused on work councils as collective organs, neglecting the people representing it at an individual level. Changing industrial relations in Germany have been characterized by decentralisation (Muller-Jentsch 1997). This has led to an increased demand for bargaining at the establishment level (Verbetrieblichung) and consequentially to a much stronger involvement of work councils in managerial decision processes (Nienhuser/Hossfeld 2007). The enhanced knowledge of the individual bargaining partners is crucial in understanding the functioning of work councils. The increasing heterogeneity of industrial relations is also apparent in the research on types of work councils (e.g. Kotthoff 1981, 1994; Nienhuser 2005). To date, our knowledge of the action strategies of various types of work councils is limited. One factor in learning about the action strategies of work councils may be the individual characteristics and personality of its members. For example, work councillors are exposed to conflicts of interests to a greater extent than other employees, which leads to emotional strain and stress.2 Therefore, one may expect that only those who feel capable of dealing with such high levels of stress would take on a position within the work council. Yet, engaging in a work council provides the opportunity to make use of the rights of codetermination and thereby have the chance to participate in managerial decision processes. Nevertheless, only a very small fraction of the workforce is in fact a member of a work council. The basis for such individual action strategies in becoming a work councillor can be seen in the individual set of preferences and personality structure that determines emotions, thoughts, and behaviour (Pervin et al. 2005). Only recently, Borghans et al. (2008) have emphasized the linkage of personality measures from psychology and economic preferences, such as time preferences and risk aversion, with economic outcomes in general. As work councils - characterized by the actions of their individual members - are considered to impact on the performance of the company they work for, this strongly encourages looking at the individual. The objective of the present paper is to shed light onto work councillors as individuals by investigating personality and attitudinal characteristics as determinants to work council membership. The following psychological and economic concepts are applied to differentiate among members and non-members of work councils: the Five Factor Model, risk aversion, hocus of Control, and reciprocity. The use of a large scale representative data set from Germany provides an opportunity to empirically analyse this paper's objective, which has, to the best knowledge of the author, not been made use of before. …